His commentary on the potential for renewable energy to meet climate change reductions was limited to a narrow study. I routinely hand out 25 studies released in the last few years to my students, that in aggregate, conclude that the world and the U.S. can meet most-or-all of their energy needs with commercially available high-value energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies.

The most recent studies on renewable energy contributions do not address the potential of high-value energy efficiency.

For example, energy efficient motors, super-insulated and electrochromic windows, solar daylighting, LEDs/CFLs, higher-insulated buildings, and combined heat and power (waste heat) could easily save or meet over 20 percent of U.S. energy needs and use according to the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE).

Most energy efficiency analysis does not always include renewable thermal technologies — solar heating and cooling, geothermal heat pumps, wood pellets and bio-fuels, trombe walls and other passive solar building features — all of which could cut U.S. energy demand by at least another 10 percent.

Base-load renewable energy (capable of supplying power 24-hours a day) can provide the U.S. (conservatively) 10 percent through geothermal according to an MIT study, 10 percent by marine energy, which includes freeflow hydropower, tidal, wave, and ocean thermal and currents (EPRI group study), and 18 percent by waste biomass including landfill gas, food processing wastes and contaminated grains, animal manures and poultry litter, human sewage and food wastes, and forest slash and thinnings that are not able to be absorbed by the forest floor (ORNL report).

Concentrated solar power (CSP) located in U.S. deserts actually has the capacity to meet all our electricity needs from a resource standpoint and can also supply baseload power when it uses molten salts and other thermal storage. Assuming transmission limitations and costs, CSP could conservatively, but practically, provide 10 percent of U.S. electricity needs.

Most studies do not point out that many variable renewbles naturally coincide with season and peak electric power rates, ratchet rates, and/or lower utility demand charges. According to Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance's New Rules Project, “customers in San Francisco on a time-of-use pricing plan pay more for electricity during peak hours (12 noon to 6 p.m.). In the cold months (November through April), the peak rate is 11.1 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), compared to 8.3 cents during non-peak hours. But in the warm months (May through October), electricity used from 12 noon to 6 p.m. costs 31 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), while off-peak electricity is 7.9 cents per kWh.”

Variable solar, meaning concentrated solar power without storage and photovoltaics, both utility-scale and distributed on-site generation can meet a minimum of 12 percent of U.S. needs according to studies by Navigant, Google.org and others. And the National Renewable Energy Laboratory studies have shown that onshore and offshore wind power could supply 20 percent of U.S. electricity needs. In many areas of the U.S., these sources offset ‘naturally’ higher cost (and polluting) energy from older peak generating plants or are wheeled from utilities far away incurring line losses.

A great many of these reports fail to incorporate higher-value energy efficiency that can meet thermal needs such as waste heat and renewables, passive solar building materials, and solar daylighting — this is a huge energy resource, which my colleague Amory Lovins eloquently labeled “negawatts.”

Most of the analysis reports, including many of “my 25 top studies” also leave out certain renewables. The entire portfolio is the asset, not just part of the recipe — like a pizza without crust or a soup without broth — not acceptable. But they gloss over it — and we all accept it.

What is so nice about this blended energy scenario, is that we are not putting all our eggs in one technology basket, the energy sources are smaller and more geographically dispersed than the traditional larger-scale electricity generation, and are closer (in most cases) to the end users so there are less line losses and greater cradle-to-grave positive energy balances.

The reduction in water use is an important asset, since energy is the largest user of water, and we are at the beginning of a 50 year drought and more intense weather patterns due to a changing global climate. Wastes are minimal compared to what we are experiencing from unusable water (fracking), radioactive nuclear waste, and coal ash — a Sierra club study identified 39 additional coal ash dumpsites in 21 states that are contaminating water supplies with heavy metals. The government is inadequately monitoring these disposal sites and lax at regulating the toxic waste, according to IN HARM’S WAY: Lack of Federal Coal Ash Regulations Endangers Americans and Their Environment (PDF).

These resources are renewable and not tied to global commodity trading with unexpected increases, minimal greenhouse gas emissions as well as minimal regulated emissions under the Clean Air Act — NOx, SO, mercury and particulates. And contrary to popular notions — all are manufactured in the United States with subsidies one tenth of what the conventional energy industries receive.

So what's wrong with this picture? Not the science. Not the business case. Not the pubic opinion. Just the political will. But the deficits in our energy analysis by selectively cherrypicking only part of the sustainable energy picture just adds to the confusion and does not propel us to a sustainable future.

33 Comments

'Well, Gerald, I don't buy into the crass notion that one can put a value on life.' The alternative is that human life has no value - can't buy that argument. When you calculate the value of externalities in terms of how they affect human life, you can start with direct costs such as the increased cost of medical care and loss of income due to disability or death, but you also need to add an allowance for quality of life. This is simple expense account accounting - so much a day for meals, so much a day for life. It's somewhat arbitrary, but still something that needs to have an assigned value; the alternative, that life has no value, is untenable. If you kill my dog, I'm going to sue for replacement value plus personal distress. If you kill my kids, I'm going to want a bit more than that. If we took the route of using average court settlements as an indicator, SCL would be a lot higher.
But, I've never seen an estimate that included all of the externalities; for example, they degraded the water quality in my lake to the point where the water is undrinkable and fishing is pointless - not sure what the value of a freshly caught trout frying in the pan would be but supermarket replacement value is around $200 per year. Roman law said you can't pee in your neighbor's pool - they pee'd in my pool (from 60 miles away)!

"Terry, I couldn't follow most of your rant--seemed like an attack on various ethnicities and states as well as yours truly"

If you think disputing what is likely fraudulent information is a ranting personal attack, I can't help you.

If you think "white" is an ethnicity or race, perhaps you would like to coherently describe these imaginary things? I bet you can't do it.

If you think the figures put out by the Census Bureau that turn your cite into a pumpkin are all a pack of lies, then wouldn't it be incumbent on you to explain your reasoning?

Thank you for offering the cite but it defies any kind of reality. It has some of the same character as the doctor "proving" autism was caused by childhood vaccinations. That cost the doctor his reputation and medical license though the gentlemen was, at least initially, a serious and concerned researcher. What he did not account for was the nebulous and wildly expanding diagnosis of autism, a quite real affliction.

"White," as a race or ethnicity, is not remotely either, nor is any other classification solely by skin pigmentation. That is only a classification of people by skin color or hue that tells you little at all individually beyond such things as susceptibility to melanoma.

With even odds, you would make money betting on the taller candidate to win an election. Being tall does not make one more intelligent, discerning, more honest, much of anything. The fact tells you a lot about the electorate. That is what we have here methinks.

Terry, I couldn't follow most of your rant--seemed like an attack on various ethnicities and states as well as yours truly--but I did collect that you dispute the statistics. Here is my source for the exact 2008 numbers in my post. Razib Khan. "Which American Racial Group Has the Lowest Fertility?" Discover Magazine, September 2, 2010. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/09/which-american-racial-group-has-the-lowest-fertility/.

In looking for even more recent and authoritative data I found this report (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_05.pdf) dated Oct 2012 from the Department of Health and Human Services National Vital Statistics Service that shows American Indian and Alaskan Native Total Fertility is now down to 1.4 in 2011, and even Pacific Islanders are down to 1.7 (see Table 1 on page 7). 2.1 is replacement value, so 1.4 represents a very rapid decline. Only Hispanics are above replacement value, and they are only at 2.2.

Now recent census data do show a large rise in the number of adults claiming pure American Indian or mixed race American Indian ancestry, and this new fad has caused the totals to balloon in recent years. But, as I've cautioned before, statistics need to be handled carefully and taken in context. The fact is that Native Americans are not biologically replenishing their populations. Maybe the fad for the next census will be to claim black ancestry.

Poverty is statistically associated with higher fertility rates, just as poverty is associated with higher crime rates. But saying poverty causes either is problematic. Most serial killers, hackers, and white-collar criminals have significant disposable income, as do virtually all of America's criminal class of politicians. I don't think anyone can yet say definitively why the birthrate goes down with increased economic development, but my theory is simple distraction. When 24/7 electricity arrives, the opportunities for activities after dark greatly expand, and there are endless novelties of activities not involving one's spouse at night such as watching TV or reading or surfing online or visiting a bar or night club, or bowling, or traveling, etc. In short, people have other options for recreation than procreation. I think there is also a leveling of power between genders that comes with development, and the expansion of women's rights also slows down the birth rate. Am curious to hear other's theories on the causal mechanisms for this correlation.

Money is the only effective birth control. Poverty is the primary engine of fertility. Curiously so is disease, war, famine, etc.

Urbanization decreases fertility and on and on.

But money is the root of all evil and declining fertility.

My sister worried mightily about the extinction of the mountain gorillas of Rwanda. They were, in some cases, even being hunted for food. I told her to just raise money to make all Rwandans rich, they will die out and the gorillas can have the whole country.

BTW the American Indian population is the poorest demographic group and therefore is increasing the fastest through birthrate.

GaryRich, I appreciate your concern about projecting from statistics and also appreciate that you provide an empirical data point. When used properly, statistics are valuable and reliable, but they can be endlessly abused. Strangely enough, when people have money riding on them, they are used properly and are very powerful, as is evidenced by life insurance underwriters and casinos. Right now, based on CIA World Factbook data, the birthrate in Niger is 8 live births per female and in Ethiopia it is 6:1. If that is the average, you can imagine the outliers. In OECD countries, the birthrates apart from immigrants are below the 2.1:1 needed to sustain populations. The US only has a positive population growth curve because of immigration. The skewing demographics of immigrants are also why why the US has a somewhat poorer wealth distribution curve (e.g., Gini Index) compared to some other OECD nations without such strong immigration. This is not to slam immigrants--I am all for legal immigration--but to explain that statistics need to be understood in context. The sooner we can get the Nigers of the world the greatest birth control method ever devised--television--the sooner the world's population levels off.

If you haven't already checked out the efficiencies of High Voltage DC Transmission then take some time to look into it and see the benefits wrought from it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC

When distributed power supply exceeds local demand and practical storage, the excess power is weighted for it's earning potential. So consider the lower losses of HVDC when transmitting beyond a local area to earn revenue on excess capacity vs the losses of just wasting it.

Previously, I calculated HVDC by looking at it's total cost and divided by total miles of transmission. However, I've learned that HVDC gets cheaper with longer distances.

With such smart grids, you may find it more economical to have a 25KV rooftop solar, local utility, and long distance HVDC smart grid distribution instead of a 10KV rooftop solar, grid storage and local utility. Especially when crossing the major mountain ranges.

" In fact, history teaches that the faster we get the whole world electrified and on-step with high-efficiency plants, the faster birthrates will fall and the lower will be the peak population. Cutting a couple billion from that peak number is a huge amount of burden lifted from the Earth in the form of resource demand and GHG emissions that are saved in perpetuity."

One can hope this to be the rule and not just an anomaly influenced by other factors. Reason for my concern is that some 1st and 2nd generation immigrants with higher per capita earnings than me are having 3 to 5 kids..... Perhaps to escape from minority status and be on par with the population count of the majority.

ANONYMOUS
April 16, 2013

What about the geographical distribution of energy consumption vs energy generation - transmission adds large costs and leads to losses.

Additionally, the costs of having back up natural gas generation needs to be factored into the costs of having renewables at significant grid penetration (>20-30%).

Electrification using coal power plants is the fastest and cheapest way to transition dense populations in undeveloped countries from wallowing in their own waste and the air pollution from thousands or millions of individual indoor cooking fires to having sanitary water and sewer service and heat and light and trash service and hospitals--AND MUCH BETTER AIR QUALITY. It is even a better improvement if the coal plants are large, remote, and scrubbed. In contrast, indoor air pollution from cookstoves and fire pits in third-world shanty homes is estimated by WHO to kill 3 million people a year--2 million of them children. Coal and steam power have allowed developed nations to forgo slavery--abolition exactly followed the path of industrialization. It goes away when machines replace humans for menial labor, not because of some moral superiority of westerners. All the fossil fuel haters should be forced to live and raise their children in a pre-industrial portion of the world powered only by agricultural energy and where slavery or pseudo slavery still exist; where water treatment and hospitals and street lights are science fiction; where hard labor and disease cut lifespans in half; then take stock of their diminished circumstances and posterity in computing the externalities of coal. Who are we rich and coddled people who are so ignorant of how the majority of the world are truly living this very minute to demonize the fuel that we used to climb up and which is their best ticket to join us? In fact, history teaches that the faster we get the whole world electrified and on-step with high-efficiency plants, the faster birthrates will fall and the lower will be the peak population. Cutting a couple billion from that peak number is a huge amount of burden lifted from the Earth in the form of resource demand and GHG emissions that are saved in perpetuity.

Perhaps we could consider the "Developing World" as those countries that have as yet, not assumed or confused, the leverage of rampant use and pollution of the world's commons with the duty of their inhabitants consumption of it. Yet the worlds populations are forced, by the "Developed World", without their consent, to use those commons to their detriment. Were these costs to be responsibly shared the use of distributed solar energy production might be better recognized as a right and duty of all citizens, and not blithly awaiting captured corporate development and the subsequent tether to the "Wall Street Margin Extraction Mania" it seems headed for..

RE #s 9 & 14 Thought you all might like to see the abstract for the Epstein study from Harvard ... recent articles in NYT too ... This is a life cycle cost analysis!

"Each stage in the life cycle of coal—extraction, transport, processing, and combustion—generates a waste stream and carries multiple hazards for health and the environment. These costs are external to the coal industry and are thus often considered "externalities." We estimate that the life cycle effects of coal and the waste stream generated are costing the U.S. public a third to over one-half of a trillion dollars annually. Many of these so-called externalities are, moreover, cumulative. Accounting for the damages conservatively doubles to triples the price of electricity from coal per kWh generated, making wind, solar, and other forms of nonfossil fuel power generation, along with investments in efficiency and electricity conservation methods, economically competitive. We focus on Appalachia, though coal is mined in other regions of the United States and is burned throughout the world."

ANONYMOUS
April 12, 2013

GeraldR writes in comment #14: "It's big of you to hand out discounts for the value of everyone else's lives. Here's a challenge, what do you think the specific value of your life is."

Well, Gerald, I don't buy into the crass notion that one can put a value on life. Furthermore, even if your numbers had value, they would not represent the cost of coal fired generation, they would represent the cost of the refusal to use proper pollution controls such as mercury scrubbers. GeraldR fails to provide a value for the cost of life without access to electricity. People in developing countries view that cost as much higher than the costs incurred from pollution, which is why coal fired generation in places such as India and China continues to expand at a rapid pace. GeraldR can bandy about synthetic cost figures all he wants, but they are virtually useless in understanding market forces. You cannot purchase something with "SCL," you need to use currency.
Steven

@anonymous - the statistical cost of a life is what it is: this isn't just something made up for a particular study. SCLs are numbers established by actuarial methods and applied in many places including so-called death panels which weigh the cost of a medical treatment versus an SCL. I came across one detailed study of coal mining where the author actually adjusted the SCL based on context - basically people who live in coal mining areas have a shorter life expectancy, a poorer standard of living and poorer quality of life, hence a lower SCL than others in the same region; however, even that did not make the externalities inconsequential. In any case, SCL is balanced against mortality - lives are depreciated by age, so individuals are only given credit for their residual value. If we want to determine what the public perception of residual SCL is, we might consider that based on the amount of life insurance Americans purchase, the average is ~$47K. By comparison, applying the usual SCL, they're willing to give you $77K credit for every year you lose.

It's big of you to hand out discounts for the value of everyone else's lives. Here's a challenge, what do you think the specific value of your life is.

ANONYMOUS
April 12, 2013

Re: terry-hallinan-70211 (the very first comment)

Place a comma between "tidal" and "wave" and the sentence in the article makes perfect sense. Copyedit error, that's all.

"10 percent by marine energy, which includes freeflow hydropower, tidal wave, and ocean thermal and currents (EPRI group study)"

Scott Sklar, do you actually read the reports you hand out to your students? Did you read this one? The Black & Veatch Cost Report (http://bv.com/docs/reports-studies/nrel-cost-report.pdf) that underpins this NREL study is a fairy tale of unrealistic assumptions that no one with industry credibility could read without ROTFL.

NREL Cost Report assumptions and constraints:

- New plant construction has no environmental impact (no trees, no wetlands, no endangered species)
- only computes overnight costs of turnkey projects (no financing or interest costs)
- All laborers are direct?hire, open/merit shop, contracting philosophy (no unions)
- Full freedom to procure foreign hardware and materials
- No demolition or rock blasting needed for construction
- Fill dirt and gravel available nearby
- Fixed 2009 costs with no escalation through 2050
- For technology currently not commercialized, based on nth plant costs excluding costs of all pilot and demonstration plants built and operated for 3-5 years to prove the technology
- Does not include costs for switchyard, transmission tap line, and interconnection
- Costs for land, right-of-way, permitting, licensing, project insurance, and required improvements of tie-in infrastructure including roads, bridges, railroads were separated out as "Owner Costs" and not included.

B&V is a solid company, and I'm sure they were delivering what NREL contracted them to deliver. That's the problem. We need a government that recognizes and functions in the real world, not one that bets taxpayer money against reality over and over with predictable and disastrous results. By promoting this fantasy without applying critical thinking, especially from a position of academic authority, you are part of the problem. Amory Lovins is no better for his uncritical endorsement. Your comments and his on increasing efficiency are valid, but that phenomenon favors every source of power, not just "renewables."

"By trying to establish themselves as the only baseline power supplier (minus hydro) nuclear would attempt to hijack peak rates"

Even dammed hydro is something less than baseload energy by some figuring these days. Kenya is in a race to replace such power with geothermal as droughts have taken a toll.

Hyropower has an expanded meaning these days with even some expecting the dream of OTEC (power from thermal inversion of large bodies of water) to start producing meaningful baseload power. Tidal power is already producing baseload power.

When you get away from the insanity (in my view) of dependence on wind and sun for power, there are lots of options for renewable energy including baseload power. Geothermal is the ultimate baseload power and some would even use if for peaking power in place of natural gas.

By trying to establish themselves as the only baseline power supplier (minus hydro) nuclear would attempt to hijack peak rates and drive them up. Putting up as many different renewables as possible can help keep nuclear honest in setting price points.

ANONYMOUS
April 11, 2013

jtwitmyer writes in comment #6:
"Fossil fuels used in the future will have to include their as yet uncounted, or externalized, costs. ... They are substantial. For coal fired electricity it is 9-27 cents per KWhr. (Harvard Med) "

Studies on fossil fuel externalities are inherently skewed. They typically use a huge value for a "statistical life lost" which has no real world basis. Worse still, they assign no costs to lives or economic activity lost because high alternative energy prices curtail access to energy, which is especially significant in developing countries. If you are in China or India and you can gain access to coal generated electricity so you don't have to freeze in the dark the modest health care costs from the associated pollution are not going to be a serious concern to you. These externality costs don't predict market forces the way true costs do.
Steven

Oh Dear ... that is just what I meant by a 'pass'. The drillers and the pipeline companies are currently not held to account for the clean air and clean water regs. That is one pass granted back in the 200'0s. The other 'pass' I am talking about means that the added costs of not polluting the air and creating environmental and health problems are not included in the cost of gas.

The price of gas is cheap right now sand everyone is jumping on the bandwagon! UGH!

Nukes ... there is just no business case for nuclear power to make electricity! Costs are just too high and waste not accounted for in cost.

Renewable potential ... Have you all seen the recent modeled study from the University of DE that says we can actually do 99% renewable by 2030? The way to do that is to overproduce a variety of renewables at a variety of locations.

Fossil fuels used in the future will have to include their as yet uncounted, or externalized, costs. ... They are substantial. For coal fired electricity it is 9-27 cents per KWhr. (Harvard Med) Natural gas has a pass right now but soon will have to include environmental/health costs of drilling, issues that are today at the EPA and in the courts and state legislatures. CO has had a hard time and the University has done a study for the state.

I hope it's safe to assume an energy fuel, which will outlast usable wind and solar sources by a few million years, can be regarded as renewable. Used in Breeder Reactors, uranium and thorium fuel sources are inexhaustible - at the maximum rate humanity can possibly need to use them, they will last the remaining 5 billion years the Earth will exist.

The problem isn't technological, it's ideological. By 2050, when there are 10 billion of us, we will require 3 to 4 times more energy than we use now, to maintain international peace and stability. The ¾ of the population who currently use ¼ of the energy produced, will be fighting tooth and nail to reach our standard of living (metaphoric fighting talk, I hope).

The ideology of a world running on 100% solar, wind, etc., etc., as described above, is so complex, so demanding of resources and so environmentally/ecologically degrading, as to be dangerous today. What the fantasy would impose on the peace and prosperity of the planet, when we require 3 or 4 times more energy (within a few decades) is too awful to think about.

Arithmetically, breeder reactor technology can supply an energy rich future, to every individual on the planet, for all of time. The technology is here and now, in the form of the GE Hitachi PRISM reactor, which is a Gen IV Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (SFR), capable of breeder configuration and capable of burning what the ill-informed and duplicitous call 'nuclear waste'. In a couple of decades from now, the even more efficient Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) will also be in place.

The minuscule waste stream from these reactors decays to background radiation levels in only 300 years - easily and cheaply stored. The energy density of the technology is thousands of times greater than the dilute forms of wind, solar, etc., meaning the resource demand is thousands of times less - this alone should disturb the ideology of 'classical' renewables proponents.

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Scott, founder and president of The Stella Group, Ltd., in Washington, DC, is the Chair of the Steering Committee of the Sustainable Energy Coalition and serves on the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, and The Solar Foundation. The...